inosent said

When watching a movie online, where does it go on my computer? I know it is downloading to my PC while streaming because can see it in the progress bar of the video player, but when I search for the file using all the latest search tools, i can never find the file, in cache, or temp, or whatever. I am using FF, and the file has to be somewhere, I am just looking in the wrong place.

Hi,

you can find cached content by typing about:cache in the adress bar. To refresh the actual cache hit the F5 button. All Cache files will be displayed (memory, hard drive files included). In addition, the path is shown.

Regards, Tobias

Yes, that was the first thing I tried, but the size of the file would have been over 300MB but the largest file in the cache was only 10MB. That means it is hiding somewhere else. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

What about right clicking on the downloaded file behind the download arrow in top right corner of address bar and then selecting from the drop down menu 'Open file location' and copy the file path for future reference?

.... or perhaps checking in the program folder of the video player itself?

Thanks for the reply.

This is the scenario.

I am on movie site X. The player is embedded. No link references in the source. Maybe if I spend 1/2 hour poring over the headers I might isolate it.

In the meantime, the movie is streaming, but its choppy. So I pause, and can see the downloading viz a viz the progress bar in the embedded player. Now the movie plays OK, because it has downloaded to the PC (somewhere), otherwise, the movie would still be choppy, etc.

These files are not downloaded as files, that go into the download folder. They are stored in a temp location, somewhere.

As far as checking the folder of the vid player, it is an embedded player at the site, and which plays a flash file. So, although that was a good thought, checking the players folder for the file doesn't work.

Right on, as an embedded player playing a flash file you cannot access it.

Obviously not intended to access anything, of course. Even if you could find the "files", you would not be able to "read" them without the player, as they would be unreadable by any other means, so why do you wish to find their location? What would it prove? How would it help you?

Dingeroo, once the file is located it can be saved as a FLV file and played locally on the PC. This makes increases the quality of the playback. Plus, I am curious. I want to know where these files are being stored on my PC. Maybe there is something else being stored I dont want :)

Those items are likely in the memory cache and not stored to the hard drive in case of files that are streamed. You can do a search on the about:cache page in either of the two caches (disk/memory) to see if you can locate the file. Note that the files can be removed once the playing has finished or stopped.